Canadian transgender bill may face vote this week

OTTAWA, February 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “Pick up the phone right now and ask a Conservative MP to stand up for our women and girls by voting against the Gender/Bathroom Bill C-279,” an organization to promote Christian principles in Canadian society is urgently asking concerned citizens.

Bill C-279, sponsored by MP Randall Garrison, the NDP's LGBTT Critic, would ad “gender identity” and “gender expression” in the hate crimes sections of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code.

Canada Family Action (CFA) has discovered that the bill may be voted on as soon as Wednesday, February 27.

CFA is asking concerned citizens to contact the 15 Conservative MPs who were responsible for a swing in the vote that saw the bill through its second reading last June.

“By convincing these 15 Conservative MPs to change their minds and vote against this dangerous Bill, we will Stop the Gender/Bathroom Bill C-279,” stated Brian Rushfeldt, CFA’s president in a press release.

Numerous pro-family organizations oppose the controversial bill, dubbing it the “bathroom bill” since it could give biological men a legal alibi to use women’s bathrooms, shower rooms, and changing rooms. They worry that such a bill will lead to an increase in sexual assaults. Their worry is not unfounded.

Last November a college in Washington state decided it would not prevent a 45-year-old man who presents himself as a transgender “female” from lounging naked in a women’s locker room, in an area frequented by girls as young as six. Teenage girls on a high school swim team were using the facilities last September when they saw "Colleen" Francis exposing male genitalia through the glass window in a sauna.

Despite the left-wing's push for the bill in the name of "rights and equality," high ranking representatives from the Canadian Human Rights Commission (HRC) told the Canadian Justice Committee in December that the bill “strictly speaking…isn’t necessary”.

HRC representative Ian Fine told the committee that “the commission, the tribunal, and the courts view gender identity and gender expression as protected by the Canadian Human Rights Act [CHRA].”

Conservative MPs have pointed out that the bill is redundant since transgender individuals already enjoy Human Rights protection, because "sex" is already a prohibited ground of discrimination.

While public opinion has largely swayed to viewing people who identify themselves as transgender as victims of intolerance, scientific studies suggest a different viewpoint. A 2011 cohort study in Sweden found that “persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.”

Individuals who have left the transgender lifestyle have pointed out that what people who identify themselves as transgender need is not a bill that encourages them in a “diagnosable disorder”, but the availability of accurate psychological treatment.

“What this kind of a law is saying to trans people is, ‘you don’t have anything wrong with you, and even if you did, we are not going to look into it anyway. Just go out and get whatever job you want and if a business doesn’t hire you, we will take them to task for that.’ With this kind of attitude, people like this will never get the treatment they need,” said Walt Heyer, a former transgender person, to LifeSiteNews.com in a recent interview.

The CFA says that Bill C-279 is “much more dangerous than it appears”.

The group argues that the bill would give predators of women and girls a “legal defense”; that it would force schools to teach gender curriculum in school that would cause “gender confusion in children”; and that it would jeopardize businesses, organizations, and individuals who could “unknowingly commit Human Rights and/or Criminal Code Violations if they fail to offer ‘gender neutral’ facilities”.